Why does that matter?
Because my mind isn’t made up about this.
No doubt that it would, but it would (a) immensely piss me off and (b) make me poorer.
I can’t recall properly, but isn’t part of the issue that sugar prices in the United states are higher than the international markets thanks to tariffs, which encourages domestic producers to use high fructose and other sweeteners that are less healthy than sugar?
Also, wouldn’t a tax on fatty foods be moot? It might discourage people with elastic demand curves from buying them, but I suspect those who are overweight (myself included) have substantially inelastic curves. Which means a tax would only lower consumption by a small amount.
LMAO That was unexpected. lol.
I’m against fetal stem cell research exactly for the same basic reason I’m against taxation: one of principle. If you’re going into the functions of taxes, my concern would be where the slope ends. If government can regulate behavior with sugar, why not end drunk driving by enacting prohibition? The fact is that people always live how they want to live, whether in the light of day or in the black market. Even if, though, the tax worked, and nobody was obese, I would be opposed to it due to a basis of principle being that government would infringe upon liberty. I don’t look at things like utilitarians, for the most part, so I see individuals, and I see liberty, and I see the infringement of individuals’ liberties. That is all.
bloomj31 should research it if he wants to find out the functions of taxes; that’s reason enough. As for me, I say even if taxes fulfilled their duty to the public 100%, I would still be opposed to them. Principally, they are wrong.
I just wish the bureaucrats who push for taxes and other regulations would just be honest about what they’re doing. “Hey we want more money so we’re going to take a bigger cut when you want to buy junk food”.
If the presidents just called themselves Kings, go themselves a nice crown, scepter, throne and said things like “I AM THE EMPIRE” it’d be so much more refreshing than pretending like they’re looking out for my best interests.
Well I’m no economics expert or anything but aren’t people supposed to respond to incentives?
People who like junk food will just find another way to get their fix. I don’t see how this is going to make people hit the gym or go buy fruit and vegetables(when those options are already there, even in poor neighborhoods you can find a C-town selling veggies). Someone like me who does workout and eats healthy on the regular is now going to be punished if I wanted to buy some junk once in awhile. Kinda sucks.
You assume that the tax actually does result in creating that incentive, which isn’t necessarily the case (see my post above on this and subsequent points). In any case, the stated goal of the tax only makes sense from the perspective of the central planning overlord who believes he knows what’s best for every individual. So, do you believe that you know what’s best for every individual? If you don’t know the exact effects of the tax both direct and indirect nor whether or not it’s best for all effected (which is in fact impossible to understand without knowing the exact effects), why would you want to implement it? If you do know the exact effects and whether or not it’s best for all effected, please post the exact effects here and why you know what people should want better than they do.
Another possible effect of the tax that I didn’t note in my post above is that if the tax is flat on whatever is defined as ‘high calorie’ drinks (or food), rather than depending on the actual calorie content of the product, there would likely be an incentive for producers to heighten the calorie content of the products so as to attract more customers despite the possible price rise. Thus the effect in this case would be a greater consumption of calories and the tax would achieve the opposite of its stated goal. The main point to take from this is that there are so many unintended consequences that cannot be foreseen, and which may in fact achieve the opposite of what you wanted.
But what if it does create that incentive?
Is there any way to find out?
Omniscience. Apart from that we cannot know people’s future preferences.
If you want to experiment with people’s lives- why not convince some rich company to perform a study and sell healthy food at a loss for cheaper prices than junk food- place them in all the stores people normally shop at and see what happens. Or some other zany idea outside of taxes.
So basically this would just be an experiment.
Meh, doesn’t really bother me too much.
But I’m not in charge of this either way obviously.
If you were in charge, would you try to plan other people’s lives?
“I’m for it”
“I’m aginst it”
How does it matter what you’re for or against? In each particular case, the government commits an act of aggression in the act of collecting the taxes. What you’re for or against regarding the expenditure of those tax revenues or what precise policies you think the government should follow in the collection of them is irrelevant. It’s like being for the Mafia Don breaking fingers but not knee-caps when punishing business-owners who didn’t make their monthly protection payment. Who cares in what way the government steals? It’s just stealing.
There was a Mises daily not too long ago that discussed the fallacy of imagining that government taxes or subsidies can be “targeted”. The economy is a fully interconnected web of people. The daily forex volume is around $40 TRILLION per day. When the government taxes (purportedly) rich people, for example, the effects spread - the money that the rich person would have spent or saved is no longer spent or saved. Instead, it is transferred to the government which spends it on its projects instead. This distorts calculation, as has been pointed out by Mises, Hayek, et. al.
“High-calorie junk foods” - whatever their negative health effects on the bourgeois, overpaid, mid-level bureaucrats and middle class moralizers and their overfed only-children - also pack a lot of energy per dollar. Those who are on the verge of starvation - the homeless and the poorest of the poor - need exactly that: as much sugar and fat as can be purchased for a dollar. As Aristippus already noted, the effects of this tax - like any tax - are largely unpredictable. No government policy is ever really “targeted” as it is billed out because the economy is interconnected (the seen versus the unseen) and one predictable effect - raising the price of the highest calorie-per-dollar foods - is simply misanthropic.
Clayton -
It doesn’t. I have no power whatsoever. I’m a political nonfactor.
But why does it matter what you’re for or against?
As far as I know, no one here is a major player in the game so ultimately most of what we can say is going to boil down to “I’m for it” or “I’m against it.”
In this case we’re just talking about the possible effects of a tax.
Well I do. As you and I have discussed before context is key to determining illegality. Stealing is not always illegal. You’ve called it dual law. I find it interesting.
I have no idea. I’ve never been in politics. I don’t know the game from the inside. It’s one thing to sit here and imagine what it would be like to have power and another thing entirely to actually have power.
I honestly have no idea if I’ll ever be involved even at the local level.
The likes of fat taxes are inevitable since the inception of state health care as a way to reduce health care spending, except for the now overwhelming population proportion that is “fat”.
Viewing it through a Fu Manchu lens: Though a lean, fit health guru like me is a net loser from equalized health care costs, I’m in a better competitive position with a fatter population because men look worse overweight than women. rubs hands together wickedly