The case for an antibiotics tax • Hacker News Board

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#71

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 7:20 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #54

jswinghammer wrote: post #10

The basic problem is that one intervention is seeking to fix another. Crop subsidies are the reason why these antibiotics are so widely used. Farmers are encouraged to feed animals food they aren't meant to eat which makes them so sick they need antibiotics to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered. Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the res…

> Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the rest of us will be much better off. I don't disagree with your conclusion about what needs to be done, but you can't "just end those crop subsidies" with a flip of a switch. We're talking about millions of people and tens of thousands of jobs directly affected, and huge secondary effects to the entire f…

It already costs money, it's just that the money is coming from the taxpayer rather than the people that actually use expensive corn products.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#72

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 7:22 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #61

jswinghammer wrote: post #10

The basic problem is that one intervention is seeking to fix another. Crop subsidies are the reason why these antibiotics are so widely used. Farmers are encouraged to feed animals food they aren't meant to eat which makes them so sick they need antibiotics to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered. Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the res…

Better off in what way? Meat will get a lot more expensive, and it's already gone up a lot in the past couple of years.

Good! The people that use corn (even if indirectly) should have to pay for it rather than taxpayers.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#73

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 7:22 AM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #17

jswinghammer wrote: post #10

The basic problem is that one intervention is seeking to fix another. Crop subsidies are the reason why these antibiotics are so widely used. Farmers are encouraged to feed animals food they aren't meant to eat which makes them so sick they need antibiotics to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered. Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the res…

Or ban feeding an animal something that is not part of its "natural" diet. Then we have the fun of debating if cows naturally eat corn and soy. Chickens will be particularly fun because they historically ate the scraps from the humans (what we now call "compost" :P), they were the old form of food recycling.

What will humans eat?

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#74

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 7:27 AM UTC

breischl wrote: post #44

dnautics wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, generally speaking the point of a taxes is NOT to cover externalities, it is to control the populace and to fill the coffers of the state. Exactly what externalities do cigarette taxes cover? International trade duties? Taxes generally fail in the pursuit of correcting externalities because taxes are set by policy and committees are notoriously bad at pricing. The generally better way to cover externalities is…

I agree with your overall point. However, the implicit claim that there are no externalities to cigarette smoking is silly. There are clearly effects on everyone who might be nearby when you're smoking. In the event that you're covered by any sort of public health insurance, which is nearly certain in old age with Medicare and increasingly probable at younger ages, then the effects on your own health become a problem…

>There are clearly effects on everyone who might be nearby when you're smoking.

I don't think this is true. It only applies when indoors and probably for a very long period of time (ie living with the person, not just being at a restaurant.) Furthermore you can ban public smoking indoors as many places do, that's not the same as a tax.

>In the event that you're covered by any sort of public health insurance, which is nearly certain in old age with Medicare and increasingly probable at younger ages, then the effects on your own health become a problem for everyone else.

This is a problem with public healthcare, not smoking.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#75

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 7:30 AM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #67

breischl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your overall point. However, the implicit claim that there are no externalities to cigarette smoking is silly. There are clearly effects on everyone who might be nearby when you're smoking. In the event that you're covered by any sort of public health insurance, which is nearly certain in old age with Medicare and increasingly probable at younger ages, then the effects on your own health become a problem…

Actually, it turns out smokers cost the public health insurance system less, on average, than non-smokers do.

If anyone actually believed the argument we should tax smokers because of externalities, upon hearing this fact they would immediately say "we should tax non-smokers!"

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#76

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 7:33 AM UTC

ihsw wrote: post #24

spacehome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much like there's a cost associated with income inequality, so we tax the rich more to supposedly cover that cost. That's a fairly disturbing way to frame progressive taxation. In the other examples of taxing externalities, we intentionally discourage the behavior by taxing it. Do you intend to discourage people from becoming rich by taxing it? Also, it takes both rich and poor to have inequality. Why not tax poor…

There are some economic/social theories that suggest homelessness is an adequate and necessary deterrent to poverty. However, I'm not going to address a flaw in your logic, namely that the only role of taxation is deterring undesirable behavior.

>There are some economic/social theories that suggest homelessness is an adequate and necessary deterrent to poverty.

Is the implication here that if homeless didn't exist, it would actually be ok to tax/punish poverty? Otherwise why even bring that up?

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#77

Post by ronaldx » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:19 AM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #67

breischl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your overall point. However, the implicit claim that there are no externalities to cigarette smoking is silly. There are clearly effects on everyone who might be nearby when you're smoking. In the event that you're covered by any sort of public health insurance, which is nearly certain in old age with Medicare and increasingly probable at younger ages, then the effects on your own health become a problem…

Actually, it turns out smokers cost the public health insurance system less, on average, than non-smokers do.

Evidence, please? I understood the opposite: even if they live for a shorter time, smokers tend to have more costly chronic illnesses.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#78

Post by dllthomas » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 12:29 PM UTC

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #70

dllthomas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antibiotics are used in commercial farming because they increase weight. The tax simply needs to be enough that (weight(antibioticked cow) - weight(non-antibioticked cow))*(price of beef) < (cost of antibiotics). Maybe that's "on the order of 10,000% or more", but I'd like to see numbers.

Antibiotics are overused outside of commercial farming too.

Yes, but commercial farming is the single largest use of antibiotics. Cutting out that use would significantly improve things. We should continue to address other issues (educational campaigns hammering home the fact that antibiotics do nothing for viruses, and encouraging completion of the full course when you are taking antibiotics).

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#79

Post by jswinghammer » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 1:55 PM UTC

gutnor wrote: post #19

jswinghammer wrote: post #10

The basic problem is that one intervention is seeking to fix another. Crop subsidies are the reason why these antibiotics are so widely used. Farmers are encouraged to feed animals food they aren't meant to eat which makes them so sick they need antibiotics to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered. Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the res…

Strangely, here in the UK, corn fed meat (i.e. with antibiotics) is a premium product over grass fed one. So, the problem is a bit deeper than that. There are other problems that are solved by antibiotics: overcrowding and mass production. Nothing to do either with crop subsidies. And similarly that's not an easy problem to solve. Very few organizations defend quality meat. Small, local farmer are easy target for var…

They can only overcrowed because of corn feeding. Grass fed cows can't really be mass produced and factory farmed.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#80

Post by jswinghammer » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 1:57 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #54

jswinghammer wrote: post #10

The basic problem is that one intervention is seeking to fix another. Crop subsidies are the reason why these antibiotics are so widely used. Farmers are encouraged to feed animals food they aren't meant to eat which makes them so sick they need antibiotics to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered. Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the res…

> Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the rest of us will be much better off. I don't disagree with your conclusion about what needs to be done, but you can't "just end those crop subsidies" with a flip of a switch. We're talking about millions of people and tens of thousands of jobs directly affected, and huge secondary effects to the entire f…

I realize all that but pulling the cord is the only sane thing to do. The food that gets produced is basically poison anyway so excluding it isn't the end of the world. I would be fine with increasing food stamps before continuing these market distorting crop subsidies.