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Do “sin taxes” work?

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Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#41

Post by manicdee »

whatyoucantsay wrote: post #37
dsr_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they should be aware that the bulk of the damage that smokers, drinkers and the obese do is to themselves, and not to others Unless you have a functional health care system, in which case increased costs are passed on to everyone's taxes. It would be appropriate to dedicate revenues from tobacco and alcohol taxes to medical care. Sin taxes are taxes that fall only on the users of the products or services in quest…

Smokers cost the health care system less because they die younger: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e001678

They cost more money per year to keep alive while they're dying, and they contribute less to the economy (because they die early). The indirect costs of their mortality are far greater than the direct savings.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#42

Post by rosser »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #40
rosser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I asked in good faith for you to better articulate your position, not to be condescendingly told to read it again. Your post consists of a paragraph about externalities, some lovely-sounding "I believe that..." positions, and a couple example axes on which a society might bifurcate. I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. So, one more time for the fol…

>I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. I do see a connection, and moreover that connection is obvious to me. I genuinely see your statement as a low quality argumentative technique to ask me to repeat a very clear statement in different phrasing in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise. If you'd really lik…

> ... in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise.

That "core premise" is the very thing I want to see articulated here. What you've offered is your conclusion: that sin taxes somehow entail a structurally divided society.

> If you'd really like an answer, please articulate the nature of the logical disconnect you see.

That's literally not how argument works. The burden of proof lies with the party making the positive assertion — in this case, something about societal bifurcation and sin taxes and their causal relationship. I suppose you could say that means I somehow need to "prove" that I don't follow you, or amn't merely trolling you into tripping up as you assert, but that's a reductio and then some.

If the connection is "obvious" to you, but you are unwilling or unable to articulate it, it isn't implausible for me to surmise that we're talking around unexamined axioms (or, as I often call them, "articles of faith") of yours. Which is fine; I have my own such.

But what you're doing here isn't argument, and I have now spent more time explaining that than I think hearing whatever argument you might have to articulate is likely to be worth, in terms of the amount of my life spent.

EDIT: Not trying to be mean. Just, with this dialogue as my sample, I'm not inclined to anticipate an argument that will enlighten me, or change (or even challenge) my perspective. I'd be delighted to have been mistaken, though.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#44

Post by dsnuh »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #40
rosser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I asked in good faith for you to better articulate your position, not to be condescendingly told to read it again. Your post consists of a paragraph about externalities, some lovely-sounding "I believe that..." positions, and a couple example axes on which a society might bifurcate. I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. So, one more time for the fol…

>I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. I do see a connection, and moreover that connection is obvious to me. I genuinely see your statement as a low quality argumentative technique to ask me to repeat a very clear statement in different phrasing in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise. If you'd really lik…

It wasn't obvious to me either. It sounded like you made an argument that at least 30% of people shouldn't be allowed to drive, and then leaping to that leading to some sort of societal bifurcation? Your argument or point isn't obvious or clear at all.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#45

Post by sincerely »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #40
rosser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I asked in good faith for you to better articulate your position, not to be condescendingly told to read it again. Your post consists of a paragraph about externalities, some lovely-sounding "I believe that..." positions, and a couple example axes on which a society might bifurcate. I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. So, one more time for the fol…

>I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. I do see a connection, and moreover that connection is obvious to me. I genuinely see your statement as a low quality argumentative technique to ask me to repeat a very clear statement in different phrasing in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise. If you'd really lik…

as "obvious" as the connection may be to you, I don't understand it either. could you please elaborate

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#46

Post by lend000 »

alkonaut wrote: post #30
lend000 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a different story. Externalities should be taxed to the extent of the cost of the externality to society (if not outright banned, which is not practical for most common externalities like running a combustion engine, breathing, etc.). But pure sin taxes like soda/gambling/recreational drug taxes, where an individual is only affecting themselves, are effectively the government and busybody supporters of the pol…

> where an individual is only affecting themselves This depends on political context. In much of the western world outside the US (and partially in the US) healthcare is a publicly funded service. If you pay for your neighbors healthcare, then your neighbors obesity is an externality. > or cigarettes, on the other hand, there are two potential externalities to tax. And again here: my neighbors lung cancer is on my ta…

It seems you either missed the point of my comment or disagree with me on the fundamental level (to which degree an individual owns himself in a society). Society has absolutely no right to you working a certain amount in my opinion. The healthcare argument I also see very often, which I see quite differently. It begs the question "Why should you pay your neighbor's healthcare?". Instead of adding all these layers of socialization and externalities to address the unfairness inherent in the socialization, why not skip both? Hence why private health insurance is an effective form of measuring that externality in non socialized medicinal systems, and asking whether you are a smoker or non-smoker is the first question in the sign up process, drastically affecting your rates.

This is getting off topic, and say what you will about America's atrocious healthcare system, but the fact that it is not fully socialized is NOT the problem. Real problems: artificial non-market based demand created by partial socialization (medicare and medicaid buying programs) raising prices for the non-socialized group, oppressive FDA (costs 1 billion usd on average to push a drug through), oppressive occupational licensing (very high barrier to entry to becoming a doctor), imbalanced IP system (especially for chemical/drug patents), and plenty more. Eliminating these problems would go a long way to making America the world's best healthcare system (it already is in some regards -- do some research on where all the prime ministers of social medicine countries go for their important surgeries since their systems haven't incorporated the American medical tech yet).

There are still issues to consider with emergency care (where there is typically not market-based selection of your healthcare) but I think government incentives aiding a market based system (similar to the incentives created by Singapore, arguably the best current system) would create a system so superior to any other country's medical system, that it wouldn't be such a central political issue.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#48

Post by Sir_Substance »

dsnuh wrote: post #44
Sir_Substance wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation. I do see a connection, and moreover that connection is obvious to me. I genuinely see your statement as a low quality argumentative technique to ask me to repeat a very clear statement in different phrasing in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise. If you'd really lik…

It wasn't obvious to me either. It sounded like you made an argument that at least 30% of people shouldn't be allowed to drive, and then leaping to that leading to some sort of societal bifurcation? Your argument or point isn't obvious or clear at all.

>It sounded like you made an argument that at least 30% of people shouldn't be allowed to drive, and then leaping to that leading to some sort of societal bifurcation?

Aha, a tangible argument. You don't see the possibility of social bifurcation from 30% of the population not being allowed to drive?

Most tradie jobs require a car. It's very hard to be an electrician, plumber, chippie etc. that services homes as if you don't have a car. It might be possible to do commercial work in those fields without a car but every apprentice I've ever known has needed one to carry around the huge pile of tools they're expected to bring on site themselves.

There are also a lot of entry level unskilled jobs that require a drivers licence (assuming you consider a drivers licence "unskilled", which it sort of is but wouldn't be of 30% of current drivers had their licence revoked overnight), like delivering pizza or doing private courier work.

So yeah, changing driving laws to make it a requirement that drivers be consistently safe, courteous and predictable and refusing to give licences to people who can't meet that criteria would definitely be a social bifurcation because it would all but eliminate whole categories of otherwise relatively accessible industrial for the people that cannot get the licence, and in so doing widen the already increasingly wide (lower/middle)/high income divides that most western nations are seeing.

However, that was not my point. My point was that the argument "we shouldn't let people do this because it has costs to society" doesn't really go anywhere as an argument. That's true for pretty much everything we do in society, it's a nothing argument.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#49

Post by alkonaut »

lend000 wrote: post #46
alkonaut wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where an individual is only affecting themselves This depends on political context. In much of the western world outside the US (and partially in the US) healthcare is a publicly funded service. If you pay for your neighbors healthcare, then your neighbors obesity is an externality. > or cigarettes, on the other hand, there are two potential externalities to tax. And again here: my neighbors lung cancer is on my ta…

It seems you either missed the point of my comment or disagree with me on the fundamental level (to which degree an individual owns himself in a society). Society has absolutely no right to you working a certain amount in my opinion. The healthcare argument I also see very often, which I see quite differently. It begs the question "Why should you pay your neighbor's healthcare?". Instead of adding all these layers of…

No, no I agree completely that things should be taxed to cover externalities. My point was merely that those externalities aren’t inherent to the products but vary between societies due to - for example - what laws, taxes, social safety nets etc exist. Smoking has enormous externalities together with tax funded healthcare. The same can argusbly be said for other things too (e.g sugar).

Universal healthcare itself is a huge discussion but seems off topic here.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#50

Post by dang »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #28
rosser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following how sin taxes entail a bifurcated society. Can you elaborate on that?

I certainly can, I did so in simple, easy to understand language with examples right here in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17746413

Please don't pull uncivil tricks like that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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