Legalizing drugs

Originally posted by quackquack
I would prefer a flat tax than our "progressive" tax system.
But I don't believe the government is willing to give up it is power to trade tax benefits for votes.

But you just said that a flat tax system is "offensive." It requires wealthy people to pay much more taxes than the poor. In addition, it would require an increase of taxes on the wealthy when applied to the US, which has a regressive taxation system.

Originally posted by normbenign
You presume that all "workers" are poor and all wealthy are "lucky". This is hardly the case. Many workers save and accumulate, and become wealthy over the course of many years, all the while paying taxes.

It is far more common for the poor worker to rely on luck, hitting the number, than for the wealthy, who already know the odds are very slim and have chosen a better route.

That's not what I assumed. I am "assuming" that it doesn't take work or skill to inherit money.

Originally posted by normbenign
The costs are not, or at least should not be societal. They are individual consequences of poor decisions. Sin taxes just tax the sinner, but do literally nothing to mitigate the consequences, or to make the sinner reconsider his bad decisions.

Here learn something: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/the-cost-of-smoking-iv-external-costs/

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
That's not what I assumed. I am "assuming" that it doesn't take work or skill to inherit money.

Your leap from there is that all wealthy inherit the wealth. Income is not usually inherited. Income and inheritance are different issues. Note, some luck can be at play in investments, but few attempting to time markets do very well. The great majority of wealth in the US, is earned not inherited.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Here learn something: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/the-cost-of-smoking-iv-external-costs/

That doesn't deal at all with my contention that the social costs are social due to government policies that remove personal responsibility. Yeh, everything becomes a social cost in a socialist society.

When someone makes a poor decision why should I pay for it, or when I make a poor choice why should I expect someone else to pay?

Originally posted by normbenign
That doesn't deal at all with my contention that the social costs are social due to government policies that remove personal responsibility. Yeh, everything becomes a social cost in a socialist society.

When someone makes a poor decision why should I pay for it, or when I make a poor choice why should I expect someone else to pay?

You obviously didn't read it so why pretend you did? From the article:

Major sources of external cost include life insurance outlays of $1.78/pack. This figure means that smokers (who do pay higher life insurance premiums) do not pay premiums that are high enough to account for their observed mortality as compared to non smokers who purchase private life insurance. This is an example of private decisions on the part of smokers and non smokers in life insurance markets that have the effect of non smokers cross subsidizing smokers. The magnitude of the effect is larger than the net external costs of smoking. Other external costs include foregone tax receipts on lost Social Security taxable earnings ($1.02/pack), work loss due to sick leave, ($0.76/pack), and small productivity losses while smokers do work ($0.24/pack), again as compared to non smokers.

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/the-cost-of-smoking-iv-external-costs/

What do ANY of those costs have to do with "government policies that remove personal responsibility"?

Originally posted by no1marauder
You obviously didn't read it so why pretend you did? From the article:

Major sources of external cost include life insurance outlays of $1.78/pack. This figure means that smokers (who do pay higher life insurance premiums) do not pay premiums that are high enough to account for their observed mortality as compared to non smokers who purchase private l ...[text shortened]... do ANY of those costs have to do with "government policies that remove personal responsibility"?

I started to read, and found the usual sloppy math so determined the rest wasn't worth the effort.

Life insurance premiums are seriously calculated, both for actuarial reasons as well as marketing. Most smokers don't continue life long, perhaps mitigating the overall effect of the practice as a group.

I'll tell you a story that supports the productivity part of this report, or does it. An 82 year old woman that still smokes, tells me how she got started after moving from Alabama to work in a Michigan factory. She noticed other workers taking a 20 minute break between regular breaks. It was explained that was a smoke break. Well she said, I went straight to the machine and bought a pack and lit up.

Now Social norms punish smokers, while 40 years ago it was non smokers who were ostracized. Externalities are almost always matters of opinion, and if they exist at all are minor compared to the personal, individual costs of bad habits. Such economic "facts" may be helpful in convincing smokers to stop, but in my case adding a roughly 50% tax to the cost of a box of cigars was enough to stop me.

Originally posted by normbenign
I started to read, and found the usual sloppy math so determined the rest wasn't worth the effort.

Life insurance premiums are seriously calculated, both for actuarial reasons as well as marketing. Most smokers don't continue life long, perhaps mitigating the overall effect of the practice as a group.

I'll tell you a story that supports the prod ...[text shortened]... p, but in my case adding a roughly 50% tax to the cost of a box of cigars was enough to stop me.

What an incredible example of "holding your breath until you turn blue". Facts cannot dent your preconceived positions, the statement:

Externalities are almost always matters of opinion,

is so profoundly ignorant it is mind boggling.

Originally posted by normbenign
Your leap from there is that all wealthy inherit the wealth. Income is not usually inherited. Income and inheritance are different issues. Note, some luck can be at play in investments, but few attempting to time markets do very well. The great majority of wealth in the US, is earned not inherited.

Your leap from there is that all wealthy inherit the wealth.

Not what I said, not what I implied.

The great majority of wealth in the US, is earned not inherited.

Where did you get that figure? What are you comparing it to?