Global Warming: Not Man Made

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:02 am

I just remembered the increased taxes on cigarettes and the $10 tax on cigars (yes, that is $10 per cigar..), to pay for smoking health problems (I think) What will they do when more people stop smoking? They won't cut the programs, but will find other sources of revenue. All for the children, of course.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:23 am

People would still buy the 'unhealthy' food. There is a reason it still sells, because people want it, not salads or 'healthy' foods. People will buy what they want.

When I can buy a liter of coke for half the price than I can buy a liter of milk or water then something is screwed up. There are times when things like taxes are needed to balance up where things fail. According to the OECD 30.2% of US citizens are obese and 20.9% of kiwis. There is a problem there and if a tax cures even 2% of the people I'm more than happy to pay the cost.

I personally eat my fair share of fast foods and I can honestly say that I don't eat them because they are unhealthy, fatty or what ever. I eat them because they're cheap and easy. If each meal cost even $3 more, my consumption of take-aways would massively reduce.

Then you'd better look into getting everything taxed. Because it's 'bad' for you. Once you open that pandora's box, it is very hard to close. If greasy food this month, why not foreign food or cultural food next month? What about taxing if you buy more than a certain amount of food per month? If you buy more than the governmental recommended allowance? What is concidered bad can and would be expanded.

It's quite possible to take everything to an extreme, Zak. Congratulations for blowing my comment out of proportion.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:36 am

Zakharra wrote:I just remembered the increased taxes on cigarettes and the $10 tax on cigars (yes, that is $10 per cigar..), to pay for smoking health problems (I think) What will they do when more people stop smoking? They won't cut the programs, but will find other sources of revenue. All for the children, of course.

I don't quite follow your logic there. What need will there be for these programs if people aren't smoking?

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 3:02 pm

Zakharra wrote:People would still buy the 'unhealthy' food. There is a reason it still sells, because people want it, not salads or 'healthy' foods. People will buy what they want.

People will buy what they can afford. Of course, taxes rarely stop a behavior, but by increasing its cost they do decrease the behavior, and generate revenue to remediate the effects of the behavior, as you already pointed out with the cigarette tax. We have many "sin" taxes, fatty or sugary foods could easily be added to the list. I'm not sure how eating ethnic foods would be considered bad behavior, unless you're talking about whale blubber.

I can't even tell you how many times I wished there was such a thing as healthy fast food. I'm on the road a lot and end up eating drive through food often, sometimes daily. The choices are pretty limited. About the best I can do is say "hold the mayo" not get the fries and get a diet drink. Salads just aren't an option when you're driving.... Now a healthy turkey wrap with sprouts like you get in a deli would be great, but that's not on the menu. It probably would be if the damn hamburgers were taxed, for greenhouse gases and fattiness.

So, going back to the original issue, taxing greenhouse gas emissions would both provide an incentive to reduce them and provide funding to remediate their effects, like say by buying land and replanting forests to use one example. Deforestation is probably the single biggest contributor to Global Warming in the past few centuries. In the US, over 90% of the original forests have been removed. I think it might be as high as 99%, which should put into perspective those news stories about forests "coming back" in some locations at a rate of 1% or whatever.

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:03 pm

Rotku wrote:
Then you'd better look into getting everything taxed. Because it's 'bad' for you. Once you open that pandora's box, it is very hard to close. If greasy food this month, why not foreign food or cultural food next month? What about taxing if you buy more than a certain amount of food per month? If you buy more than the governmental recommended allowance? What is concidered bad can and would be expanded.
It's quite possible to take everything to an extreme, Zak. Congratulations for blowing my comment out of proportion.

I used that because it can be taken as extreme, but there is a chance that it can happen. After all, it's in your best interest to be healthy, isn't it? If the people can't be trusted to make the right choices on food and health, the the choices will be made for them. Why is it extreme? Look at what beruacracies do, add more regulation and grow everlarger.

I don't quite follow your logic there. What need will there be for these programs if people aren't smoking?

Concidering the effects of smoking turn up years to decades afterwards, yes there would be a need for them. IF the money was spent on that, it might be worth it, but the nature of government and politicians is to spend ever more money. Unfortunately people will stop smoking or turn to other alternatives and the program will start to starve for funds. Which will be gotten enselwhere.

Lusipher · Post by **Lusipher** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:10 pm

Smokers are idiots. Lets do something that will eventually kill me. Sure, let me hop on that

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:33 pm

Danubus wrote:Smokers are idiots. Lets do something that will eventually kill me. Sure, let me hop on that

Everything you do will kill you in the end.

Lusipher · Post by **Lusipher** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:47 pm

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Smoking is like drugs or alcohol. You can willingly keep yourself from doing those things. You just have to be strong minded and not associate yourself around those that do them. I quit drinking long ago because I saw so many of my friends getting hurt, busted, or just being ignorant. I tried smoking a few times when I was younger and hated it. Made my heart race too fast so I quit and I was glad I did. Its a disgusting vile habit. Ive never done any drugs in my life except the ones I take for my epilipsy. I have been high once, but that was contact high from a AC/DC concert.

I dont give into vices. Too many people let them control their lives. They can say all they want that a certain vice doesnt control them, but their only fooling themselves. Grow up, get some balls, and be better than sinking to such stupidity.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:00 pm

The notion of a tax on "bads" is not that you do something that is bad for you, its that you are doing something that is also bad for other people. The analogy from global warming to a tax on 'bad' food is a red herring. "Bad" food anyway is really a discussion about health insurance, since that is the only mechanism through which one could postulate an economic externality requiring a corrective tax.

Pollution in general, however, has negative consequences for people whether they chose to participate in the economic chain that created it or not. Those that create the pollution should pay for the right, and not be able to foist the costs of pollution on to the general population. A corrective tax is one way to do that, but not necessarily an efficient way to do so (which makes the analogy to bad food doubly crude). Far better to put firm caps on pollution emissions, distribute rights to pollute, and let folks trade those rights on a market. When the right to pollute has value, it at once both puts a cost on pollution, and also provides the correct incentive to reduce pollution in the least costly ways. All through a market mechanism. The reason Europe's carbon trading system is crap is that the emission caps are rediculously high, thus rights to emit have little value.

Grand Fromage · Post by **Grand Fromage** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:34 pm

Somebody's projecting.

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:55 pm

fluffmonster wrote:The notion of a tax on "bads" is not that you do something that is bad for you, its that you are doing something that is also bad for other people. The analogy from global warming to a tax on 'bad' food is a red herring. "Bad" food anyway is really a discussion about health insurance, since that is the only mechanism through which one could postulate an economic externality requiring a corrective tax.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_det ... dline/2336

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/235155

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 144621.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19726781/

http://www.yaleruddcenter.org/default.aspx?id=101

It's not so far fetched as you think, Fluff. It is being looked at seriously. not neccessarily as a health insurance issue, although that is how it'll be pushed, but because people are too stupid to know what's best for them.

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:07 pm

Danubus wrote:I dont give into vices. Too many people let them control their lives. They can say all they want that a certain vice doesnt control them, but their only fooling themselves. Grow up, get some balls, and be better than sinking to such stupidity.

Eating can be called a vice. As can playing computergames, anything really.